Spending ones time in learned trifles; darkening counsel by words; mystifying the more by attempting to unravel mysteries; putting truths into a lantern through which, at best, we see but darkly. When monks bring their hoods over their faces to meditate, they are said by the French to lanternise, because they look like the tops of lanterns; but the result of their meditations is that of a brown study, or fog of sleepy thought. (See above.)